If any man serve, me
Or is willing to be a servant of Christ, and to be esteemed as such;
let him follow me;
as in the exercise of the graces of love, humility, patience, self-denial, and resignation of will to the will of God, and in the discharge of every duty, walking as he walked, so in a way of suffering; for as the master, so the servants, as the head, so the members, through many tribulations, must enter the kingdom; to which he encourages by the following things:
and where I am;
in heaven, as he now was, as the Son of God; or "where I shall be", as the Syriac and Persic versions render it, even as man, in the human nature, when raised from the dead:
there shall also my servant be;
when he has done his work, and the place is prepared for him, and he for that, and where he shall ever abide; and as a further encouragement, he adds,
if any man serve me, him will [my] Father honour;
by accepting his service, affording him his gracious presence here, and by giving him eternal glory hereafter, to which he has called him.